Police not guilty of assault on 92-year-old amputee

Two police officers have been found not guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after a 92-year-old amputee was pepper-sprayed and Tasered at his care home.
PCs Stephen Smith, 51, and Rachel Comotto, 36, denied using excessive force on Donald Burgess at Park Beck care home in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.
Jurors returned their unanimous verdicts on both Sussex Police officers at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday.
They found PC Smith not guilty of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for his use of Pava spray and for using a baton, whilst PC Comotto was found not guilty of one count for deploying her Taser.
The following video contains distressing scenes.
Despite this, Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable Paul Court said that the officers would still face gross misconduct proceedings.
"Police officers can often find themselves in challenging and unpredictable situations, where they must make split-second decisions to keep the public safe and do so with measure, compassion, and skill," he said.
"We support them to do this and it's what our communities expect.
"Use of force must be reasonable, necessary, and proportionate, and officers know they will be held accountable for their actions every time."
The care home called 999 in June 2022 after Mr Burgess, a single-leg amputee and wheelchair user, reportedly grabbed a knife and threatened to stab staff.
PC Smith sprayed synthetic Pava pepper spray into Mr Burgess's face and used his baton to try to knock the knife out of his hand, with PC Comotto deploying her Taser - all within a minute and 23 seconds of entering the pensioner's room.
Mr Burgess was taken to hospital where he contracted Covid and died 22 days later, but the officers were not being held responsible for his death.
The court previously heard that Mr Burgess' behaviour was "out of character" and that his movements with the knife were "extremely quick", deputy care home manager Donna Gardner said.
Judge Christopher Hehir told jurors: "The reason for his behaviour that day, we now know, is that he was delirious as a result of a urinary tract infection."
Prosecutors had claimed the force used against Mr Burgess, who had been reportedly waving a serrated cutlery knife around and telling staff he would "take pleasure" in murdering them, was "unjustified and unlawful" given his age and physical condition.
The court heard both officers repeatedly asked Mr Burgess to drop the knife, with PC Smith warning him: "Put the knife down mate, or you will be sprayed or tasered. That's up to you."
Footage from body-worn cameras played to the jury during the trial showed PC Smith then directly spraying Mr Burgess's face.
The care home resident then raised the knife a couple of times as PC Smith used his baton to try to get the weapon out of his hand.
When this failed, PC Comotto deployed her Taser.
PC Smith previously told jurors he did not see that Mr Burgess was disabled and using a wheelchair as he was focused on the knife the pensioner was holding in his hand.
During her evidence, PC Comotto said she believed using the Taser was the safest way to "protect" Mr Burgess as she feared her colleague using the baton again would cause more harm.
She explained that she knew from her training the risk of injury to Mr Burgess was higher with a baton than with a Taser.
The officer said: "It was proportionate because other tactics had failed. If I didn't act, something worse could happen."
"I'm not a trigger-happy officer," she added. "It's the first time I've fired my Taser."
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said both officers should face a gross misconduct hearing for potential breaches of the police standards of professional behaviour, with PC Comotto facing a further misconduct allegation relating to comments she made on social media after the incident.
IOPC director Emily Barry said: "We know this case – including the police body-worn footage that was released during the trial – has caused understandable concern in the community.
"It was right that the evidence was put before a jury so the officers could be held accountable and we respect the jury's decision."
Additional reporting by PA Media.
Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.
Police officers 'use force first' on amputee, 92
Use of Taser on 92-year-old was viable, court told
Jury deliberate over force used on amputee, 92
Sussex Police
HM Courts & Tribunals Service

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During the conversation, she said, Azzopardi 'was borderline threatening… I was so stressed out, I couldn't handle the stress of it running. … The story had been [looked at by] lawyers, but I worked for a company that was very scared of being sued.' McCloy said the interaction with Azzopardi was 'very, very intense' and that he was 'trying to scare me.' 'I respect tough and aggressive reporters and I make zero apologies for doing my job,' Azzopardi replied. 'The norms have changed over the years and I think we all have made adjustments, but a government and a campaign is not the same as running a daycare and won't be treated as such.' McCloy's story never ran. The station, she said, decided to pull the plug. (CBS6 did not respond to a request for comment.) During his time as governor, Cuomo kept few friends. Save for a few loyalists, his staff turned over quickly. His office leaked like a sieve and his multitude of scandals frequently spilled into the public eye. As former Cuomo aide Joel Wertheimer once described it to New York Magazine, Cuomo and his close associates spent a decade being both mean and bad at their jobs. By 2021, after Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report that concluded the governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women during his time in office, he had few allies left in the state capital to defend him. After years of frustration with the governor's office, New York's political class took the opportunity to pressure him out of politics with an almost unified voice. Cuomo, who'd served as governor since 2011, resigned 14 days after James' report was released. Cuomo denied any sexual intent with his behavior, but said of one accuser, 'If she said I did it, I believe her.' (In January, the state of New York settled with the U.S. Department of Justice after a DOJ investigation concluded that Cuomo had sexually harassed more than a dozen state employees.) Cuomo continues to deny all allegations and said recently that he regrets resigning. Even after Cuomo left office, though, he maintained a small but ardent base of popular support from voters throughout the state who always believed him to be just the kind of tough leader that an often dysfunctional city and state government needs — particularly during Trump's second term. Cuomo has certainly taken advantage of the political environment: His own name recognition, the incumbent mayor's deep unpopularity and an array of lesser-known hopefuls fighting for a similar lane have all helped him overcome high unfavorables. Cuomo has held a lead in every public ranked-choice poll of the New York City mayoral race's Democratic primary since he entered it in March — though his advantage has narrowed in recent weeks. He's stayed busy, glad-handing at churches and union meetings and continuing to hover around New York's political scene. And his efforts have been rewarded with a long list of enemies turned allies. 'What he's done is fill what is broadly perceived as a constructive leadership vacuum,' said Kathy Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization whose membership includes many of the city's business leaders. 'I don't think we'd be seeing any of this happen if we didn't have a mayor who was indicted a year and a half ago,' she said, referring to the indictment alleging Mayor Eric Adams accepted illegal campaign donations from foreign nationals. (The charges were ultimately dismissed by the Justice Department; Adams is running as an independent in the general election). If Adams' support hadn't cratered, according to Wylde, the dynamics of the race would be very different, and the business community she represents would have been more divided if both were strong contenders in the race. As Cuomo has maintained his lead atop the polls, one by one many of his most vociferous former critics have lined up behind him. On June 6, Ramos, one of the three lawmakers Azzopardi specifically attacked in 2019, endorsed the former governor in the ranked-choice primary. Ramos, who is staying in the race but polling in the low single digits with a campaign that's in serious debt, said in March that Cuomo is a 'corrupt bully with a record of alleged sexual misconduct.' As recently as June 4, she told POLITICO after a mayoral debate, 'I wish I lived in a city where voters cared about women getting harassed.' Evidently, she changed her mind — though her sudden turnabout appears to also reflect her personal frustration with Mamdani. Either way, she's now a regular feature on the campaign trail with Cuomo in the race's closing days. But while Ramos endorsed Cuomo, the former governor did not return the favor. Ramos declined to comment for this story. Others who called for Cuomo's exit are also falling in line. In 2021, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said the governor's resignation was 'in the best interest of New York State,' but endorsed him in March saying he didn't want to 'relitigate the past.' Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D.-N.Y.), who made the #MeToo movement a key plank of her 2020 presidential bid, called the harassment allegations against the governor 'serious and deeply concerning' — and demanded he resign. But in March, when asked about Cuomo's mayoral bid, Gillibrand told NY1, 'This is a country that believes in second chances.' Torres did not respond to a request for comment. Gillibrand's office directed POLITICO Magazine to her comments to WNYC's Brian Lehrer, in which she said, 'Everyone gets to decide in this election who they want to vote for. It's up to New Yorkers. It is not up to me. And that's it.' In 2021, Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, the chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, also called for Cuomo to resign. But she was one of Cuomo's early endorsers in the mayoral race; he secured her backing in March. Now, she argues, she and others prematurely asked him to step down, before he had a fair shake in the court system (criminal charges against Cuomo were ultimately dropped). 'I was the first County Party Leader in our city to endorse Cuomo for Mayor because he will utilize his unparalleled experience to deliver real results,' Bichotte-Hermelyn said in a statement to POLITICO Magazine. 'As a recent law school graduate, I must emphasize that we can't just judge on the court of public opinion — everyone must be judged under the law, which require due process, discovery, merit-based claims and all constitutional rights.' A POLITICO analysis showed that over 40 percent of Cuomo's top endorsements from elected officials come from people who publicly condemned him in 2021. Smikle, the political strategist who used to head the state Democratic Committee, told POLITICO Magazine that many of the politicians and advocates who felt constantly under attack from Cuomo were eager to be rid of him. Their frustrations with the governor led them to join the charge against him when it was clear there would be few political repercussions for doing so. 'There were some [state legislators] that believe that Cuomo bullied them,' Smikle said. 'For some, there was a rush to push him out the door once they saw the opening, and that there would be little to no political fallout.' 'Some of these [same] people have endorsed him at this point, which I think speaks to his shrewdness and his desire to succeed at all costs, even if it requires being [back] in the face of people who wanted to destroy you,' Smikle continued. 'From his point of view, that's just being a politician. He's going after what he wants.' New York voters might want a sometimes-obnoxious, callous, old-school fighter raised in an outer borough to go up against Trump, another old-school fighter raised in an outer borough. And Cuomo's office has in fact long cultivated that image. In 2013, at the annual Legislative Correspondents Association Show in Albany, his team handed out stickers with a picture of then-top adviser Larry Schwartz and the phrase, 'BULLIES DELIVER.' But insiders argue the attitude that Cuomo takes with reporters and state lawmakers might not show up when the president is involved. Multiple former Cuomo associates said that he was more inclined to punch down at underlings than up at Trump. One described him as having a glass jaw, and that after a call with Trump during the George Floyd protests in 2020 in New York, Cuomo seemed visibly nervous. 'New Yorkers saw the governor battle Trump every day during COVID … Andrew Cuomo is the only candidate in this race with a record of standing up to this bully and succeeding,' Azzopardi responded. 'I think one of the biggest misunderstandings the public has about Andrew Cuomo is they think that because he, as governor, was always pretty good at centering himself, that he's in some way, a good leader, a good manager, the kind of person you want in charge,' said Janos Marton, the chief advocacy officer at the progressive advocacy organization Marton first encountered Cuomo while working for the Moreland Commission, a state-run effort to root out corruption that was hobbled by Cuomo in 2014 after he directed the commission to stop investigating his political allies. 'But the reality is, he is an extreme micromanager with a very small inner circle that has gotten smaller over the years. … I shudder to think how he would run a city as dynamic and complicated as New York City.' If Cuomo wins, he'll have to contend not only with Trump but more directly with Hochul, his onetime lieutenant governor, who called Cuomo's behavior as described in James' report 'repulsive and unlawful.' Despite the vast differences between his old job and his potential new one, though, few people who know him think that he'll change. As the state lawmaker who chose not to endorse Cuomo argued, 'Given some of the things that have been widely reported about [Cuomo], I'd imagine some of those retribution tools and tactics will come back again.'